


Not/Enough

by musicforswimming



Category: The Odyssey
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-04-24
Updated: 2003-04-24
Packaged: 2017-10-02 10:23:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musicforswimming/pseuds/musicforswimming
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A man, a goddess, and longing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not/Enough

His thoughts were a constant pounding in his mind, sometimes chaotic and sometimes organized, but always they beat against his mind like the sea.

Odysseus lay with Calypso every night, and as soon as he could slip away from her bed, he did so, and would pray.

There was nothing that would make a proper sacrifice on the island, and anyway, he would risk no further wrath by sacrificing them if there were. Odysseus knew not what happened in the most holy of holy places, but he knew what felt sacred, and so he did the best that he could, kneeling on the rocks and whispering.

During the first year, She who had protected and guided him for so long appeared again. He could tell not how long he had been on the rocks this night, and the words would run together in his mind, so that he could not count how many times he had repeated them, but he felt somehow that the night was not old yet.

She wore the same sandals, and they were not yet dirty or marked. "I thought you had forsaken me," he said when he saw them before him, None disturbed him when he prayed, for Calypso still slept.

"Never." Her voice was soft when she comforted him, a calm breeze at the eye of the fiercest storm. She reached down then, and with the touch of one finger guided his chin up so that he met her gaze, Her eyes the color of sea and sword. "Do you lose your faith?" asked She quietly, and Her touch was on his skin no more.

"Never," he answered, and knew that it was true, for in his heart he had and would trust Her ever. "I only thought that you might have abandoned me for one who may yet have hope...one who shall not anger your peers on the sacred Mount as I have."

The Goddess smiled then, and Her eyes were more sword now than sea. "Never believe that, Odysseus, for thou art blessed -- by me if by none else, and though my father and my fellows may be fickle in their favorings of mortals, I am not. Those I have blessed shall stay blessed, and those whom I curse, they shall always be cursed." She reached a hand out again, but lay it not on him. Instead, her fingers hovered above his skin, and Odysseus was torn by two urges, equally strong within him: one to draw away, unworthy and strangely afraid, and the other, yet more terrifying, to lean closer to Her hand, even, blasphemously, take Hers in his own. Two songs tore at him, one of Wisdom and one of War, and both were in Her voice.

He closed his eyes, certain that he would be rent in two, and found that between the urges he was paralyzed and could only stay still as the stones on which he knelt.

There was a wind then, and both the songs that screamed within his mind grew quieter, though they would not cease for years. Odysseus could hear only the eternal sound of the ocean's sighs. The wind played about him still, stirred his clothes and hair, and finally he opened his eyes, knowing already that Athena was gone. The sky was dark yet.  
   
   
   
   
"Why do you let me continue to hope?" he asked the wind and sea one morning, as the Chariot neared the horizon, and yet he knew that it was not they who allowed him to hope, but indeed one who defied them yet.

No answer came, though, and She did not come either. After he prayed, he left the rocks, this place that had become his temple, and laid down on the shore. Odysseus thought once more as sleep came to him of Penelope, and of his son, and stared out to the sea. He could not have guessed when sleep took him, for when it did, he dreamed of his wife, his child, and a sea as gray as Her eyes.  
   
   
   
   
On the darkest nights, those nights when he was least willing to join Calypso and the nights when he was most willing, Odysseus remembered Her words. Even as he moved in the nymph, even as he allowed his body to respond to hers, still he recalled only Athena's words and, when he reached his peak, it seemed that the songs that haunted him along with Her words and the memory of Her touch played out in harmony.

Each night still he prayed, and he came to think of this place on the rocks as, if not holy, than at least his own, and Hers as well. Never did even Calypso violate its sanctity.

(This was only because she slept as he knelt there, but he was nonetheless grateful, for whatever the reason, it meant that this place was his own.)

Every word She had ever spoken to him he remembered there, and clung them as though he were newly-wrecked on a stormy sea, and still hanging desperately to the timbers of his ship.

It was enough to let him keep hoping for many months, even a few years, but it was not enough forever, and soon all that remained clear in his mind were those two songs, one of Wisdom and one of War, and yet both of Her, and a vague and desperate sense of hope.

This sense was all he thought of in one of the few nights that stood out in his mind -- he clung to his hope and the songs, and when Calypso gave herself to him, he could not remember Her words, but only her touch.

Somehow She knew, and came to him that very night in the fourth year.

He saw Her sandals before him, her ankles and feet within them, as he prayed, and closed his eyes against the sight of Her skin.

"I have not abandoned hope," he said, and knew that it was true, and somehow he regretted that, for it meant that She would soon depart. Some fire burned within him now, and he longed to keep Her there.

"But it is not enough," said She in answer, and her hand was on his chin.

"It must be, for I hold to it yet."

"But it is not enough."

She drew him to his feet then, and a light seemed to come from within her, and her hands were still on his skin.

"It will never be enough," he admitted finally. "But it will have to suffice, for I would not sacrifice any more of my honor, and I would dash myself to pieces on these very rocks before I would ask you to sacrifice yours."

"But Calypso and my father would not allow you to be killed." The voice of Athena was low, and Her eyes, mercifully, were on his hand that she clasped in her own.

"Would you?" he asked against his own wisdom -- but, then, wisdom seemed to come in strange forms on this island.

"If I meant for you to die, I would have had many chances already to let it happen."

Then she kissed him, her lips soft, and for the first time since he had last seen her, for the first time, it seemed, in his life, he knew total

(divine)

perfect silence.

He opened his eyes long enough to meet Her gray ones, and her hands rose to his face. "I am sorry," he whispered.

He closed his eyes, and she kissed his brow, and whispered "Do not be, for true wisdom lies not in knowing your mind, but in knowing your heart, and your flesh, and your mind all."

Though it was not morning yet, they did not need the sunlight. She walked with him then, down to the sand, and there she sat with him until he slept once again.


End file.
